'The Race' Plays Racial Politics of Its Own

During confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy created the opportunity to accuse her critics of playing “racial politics.”

"You have one leader of the Republican Party call her the equivalent of the head of the Ku Klux Klan," the Vermont Democrat proclaimed last week. "That's what comes across. It comes across that, if you belong to a group that tries to help Hispanics . . . somehow you're suspicious.”

Confirmation hearings usually are supposed to be about getting specifics about the nominee. But Leahy chose to make vague accusations against unnamed critics of the Supreme Court nominee while defending an unnamed organization.

However, it was apparent to D.C. insiders that the “group that tries to help” Hispanics is the National Council for La Raza (The Race) and the “Republican leader” is me.

It isn’t surprising that Leahy didn’t want to use our names. After all, it’s difficult to defend someone belonging to a group called “The Race” by accusing her opponents of playing racial politics. The last thing the Democrats want is for the American people to know about the National Council of La Raza, its radical agenda, and Sotomayor’s association with the group.

Sotomayor is a member of La Raza, and her comments about “wise Latinas” being superior to white men appeared in the La Raza Law Journal. The National Council of La Raza bills itself as “the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States.” It works through “its network of nearly 300 affiliated community-based organizations.”

Among these affiliates are several chapters of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán), which La Raza helps fund. Aztlán is what radical “Mechistas” — as they refer to themselves on La Raza’s Web site — call the American Southwest, which they claim still belongs to Mexico.

Its slogan is "Por La Raza todo, Fuera de La Raza nada" meaning “For The Race everything, outside the Race nothing.” One chapter says on La Raza’s site that its mission is “empowerment of our gente and the liberation of Aztlán.”

La Raza receives tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to set up charter schools such as the Aztlán Academy of Tucson, which flies the Mexican flag but not the American flag and teaches students “Aztec math.”

In 1994, La Raza gave its Chicano of the Year Award to Jose Angel Guitierrez, who once said, “We have got to eliminate the gringo, and what I mean by that is that if the worse comes to the worst, we have got to kill him" and that “our devil has pale skin and blue eyes.”

Of special importance when considering a Supreme Court nominee is La Raza’s position on a variety of policy and legal issues. It supports driver’s licenses, in state tuition, and amnesty for illegal aliens. It says that virtually all enforcement of our immigration laws on the state level is unconstitutional. It filed amicus briefs in favor of racial preferences and in favor of benefits for illegal aliens. It led the legal attack against Hazelton, Pa., for its official English and anti-illegal alien measures.

At the very least, Sotomayor should explain where she stands on these issues.

While questioning her connections to radical left-wing groups is off limits, attacking conservatives for belonging to mainstream organizations like the Federalist Society is fair game for the Democrats.

When Larry Thompson was up for deputy attorney general in 2001, Leahy questioned his role with the organization. Sen. Richard Durbin denounced the group as a “far right” group, which he implied might want to bring back the Dredd Scott decision upholding slavery.

The Federalist Society is nothing but a debating and social organization for conservative and libertarian law students and attorneys. In contrast to La Raza, it takes no position on legal cases or policy.

If membership in the Federalist Society is a problem for the Democrats, imagine how they would react if Samuel Alito and John Roberts belonged to a group called “The National Council of the White Race,” which honored a man who once said, “We have got to eliminate Latinos, and what I mean by that is that if the worse comes to the worst, we have got to kill him," as “White Man of the Year.”

They wouldn’t pass the bar, much less become Supreme Court justices. But when a Hispanic or a black holds these views, we need to celebrate the diversity they display.

The Democrats' support of Sotomayor and La Raza shows us what Obama’s “post-racial” America really looks like. Designated minority victim groups are free to promote their anti-white racist agenda, while any whites who fight back are playing “racial politics.”

Former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, who represented Colorado’s 6th Congressional District from 1999 to 2009, founded and chaired the 100-plus member bipartisan Immigration Reform Caucus. In 2008, he sought the Republican nomination for president. He chairs the Team America PAC and is honorary chairman of Youth for Western Civilization. He also is president of the Rocky Mountain Foundation.

During confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy created the opportunity to accuse her critics of playing “racial politics.” "You have one leader of the Republican Party call her the equivalent of the head of the Ku...